Arrow, Artisan Team On Cloud-Based Data Protection For NetApp Storage

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Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider Artisan Infrastructure, together with Arrow Electronics, this week is unveiling a cloud-based data protection offering for NetApp customers.

The service, which will be available to solution providers via Arrow's ArrowSphere cloud services marketplace, is targeted primarily at hardware-focused solution providers that have yet to develop a strong cloud storage business, said John Austin, cloud services practice manager at Arrow, Englewood, Colo.

"These are the partners who are struggling for the most part to figure out how to get into the cloud and subscription business," Austin said. "We want to help them keep their on-premise sales while increasing their cloud and online business."

"We help VARs compete with the Hewlett-Packards and the Rackspaces," Hierholzer said. "We are working with Arrow to help VARs stay viable as customers move to cloud services."

Solution providers partnering with NetApp and Arrow can now leverage Artisan's cloud storage to provide customers with data protection via the same NetApp tools they already use, Hierholzer said.

"We offer a hybrid service," he said. "Customers' on-premise NetApp Filers can be mirrored using the same native NetApp tools like SnapMirror, which storage administrators are already using.

"We provide full control, security and visibility of the cloud Filers," he said. "We even provide a command line interface. It's the same as if customers have another box sitting on-premise. If you talk to NetApp administrators, they'll say they prefer to use NetApp tools."

The Artisan-Arrow partnership helps customers who do not have the resources or who need to build their own remote data protection infrastructures, said Douglas Potter, NetApp-focused national sales engineer at Insight Enterprises, a Tempe, Ariz.-based solution provider and NetApp and Arrow partner.